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Saturday, January 21

Forces Reunited: Searching UK Military Records

Masters of the Hound, ca WWI

There are two things I like to find in a family history research tool: (1) a large set of names to search on, ideally, a million or more, and (2) a price tag of absolute zero! You just can't beat free family history searches.

The Military Records Search at Forces Reunited does the job on both counts, though it just squeaks by on #2...you can search for free, and get preliminary results on members of the UK military, both present and past. But if you want the full record, you'll need to subscribe to the Forces Reunited site.

Still, a million-plus records makes for a pretty good, powerful search, and the free results are enough to let you know if there's more information in the dataset that makes it worthwhile to sign up but as numerous comments note, they try pretty hard to get you to subscribe for the full service.

The records themselves are a combination of publicly available information, along with information voluntarily submitted directly by members of the Forces Reunited website. These latter records are a large set of data in their own right, and are not going to be found anywhere else.

There are also good military history search tools (click on Advanced Search) at the site for information on different services (Army, Air Force, Marines, etc), or individual corps, regiments, units, or conflicts.

Don't forget to also check for your family history at NewspaperArchive and Newspapers.com. These are subscription databases, but they are among the most powerful research tools available for looking into family roots. And visit the main page of Free Genealogy Tools for more, umm, free genealogical tools.

I fully agree with anonymous January 13, 2010 11:49 AM .These people are a waste of space , almost impossible to unsubscribe and get rid of unwanted emails . Will try and find somebody at the very top and get something done that way .Now , they may be OK for some ex-military types , but not for me thanks .

Telling where someone came from and that they fought in the Crimea War is not genealogy, but simply what the genealogist already knows. This plus a lack of real records makes this site worse than disappointing.

I was so dissatisfied that I cancelled immediately. In spite of seeing my (recurring - not ordered) order cancelled in my profile they still attempted to extract a new monthly payment this month from my VISA card. Luckily I had written to Visa making sure that this was cancelled last month. Completely unethical. Who are these people?

I've found the site enormously useful, obviously I can only sympathise with people who think that when a site boasts of 2 million records it is going to have everyone who ever served for the past 400 years in it!Clearly 2 million is a fraction of that.I love it and think it to be a great free initial search and even better when paying for a whole month of searching various records: you can't get that eleswhere!

I joined and paid: the recurring payments are all there in the payments process so i didn;'t think them unclear: as were the email preferences?Perhaps others are less observant, although they were clear as day for me?

Forces Reunited DO NOT hold service records. When you subscribe and find out that the info is very basic and mostly what you already know they refuse to refund your stolen cash.

For my family members the so-called records gave name, place of birth, rank, regiment, Theatre of war, and date of death. I needed to know the name, approx place of birth, age, and which war in order to find this non-information so how they can claim this is access to military records is beyond me.

I asked for a refund and have now had three very rude emails from them and no chance of a refund. I may as well have thrown my cash down the drain.

I've been a member of FR and I can't see anywhere they claim to have 'service records' although i found my great granfathers on there so the above poster is certainly talking out of his hat (polite term)you should pop down the police station mate if they've stolen your moneyand stop talking crap.

I would agree: at least you get to view millions of records without annoying credits to buy and screw around with and I've always found the 'support desk' to be knowledgable and polite so maybe it was the OPs problem in their own attitude?

how can it be 'spam'? surely you can register any email address you want or not? sounds to me like you dont know your PC from your elbow mate!anyway you can search for free: didnt think when you got something for free it could be a scam? sounds to me like the moaners above are either thick as 2 short planks or have a commercial interest in doing down this useful site!

I've just read their fantastic tutorial: the best I've ever seen and free to anyone too: well worth reading as it lists all the resources available elsewhere.Frankly whoever wrote it should get a HUGE pay rise: it's helped me past my 'brick wall' and I've got a lot further today.Just as they also warn you: those moaners above should contact the swiss red cross who want £70+ just to do a search!!

I think to be fair to some of those that have clearly been disappointed with this company (and I have no doubt almost all genealogy services reading their comments as this particular one is no different in that respect) that they have assumed records can or will be found despite the site making it clear that not all records are held or even exist.

I don't think some of the rude and frankly libellous comments are either fair or balanced.

If a searcher goes into genealogy particularly niche genealogy blindly they will waste an extraordinary amount of time and money before they find anything useful, I would suggest that the disgruntled 'anonymous' users are either in that camp or have some other reason to make such assertions.

I find this site a little basic but it 'does what it says on the tin' it offers unlimited searches over date listings from the 17th century onwards, it doesn't list classified records, it doesn't hold huge amounts of scanned original documents either, but it does give a researcher the opportunity to search listings without annoying credit/usage limits and at a very very reasonable price.

I would suggest to those wishing a quick fix to spend their time more wisely by simply contacting sites before they pay asking what they hold or do a few simple free searches, rather than upsetting yourself and posting indefensible comments here & elsewhere that make you look foolish and bitter.

No help at all with tracing war records. Emailed and surprise, surprise, didn't even receive an acknowledgement.Wish I had read this blog sooner, now sucked into the monthly payments and can't seem to get out of it. Anybody out there who was able to stop these payments going out of your account ?

I've used this site and all the others, it's very enlightening to do a google for ancestry complaints; make sure you've plenty of time though!Sour grapes from people who expect a no find no fee IMHO on all there sites!

I think the comments about me are a little silly really: I can categorically say I have no connection to this company and use them occasionally for general research work as they are cheaper to do a general search of quite a few records or get regimental info that any other site.I also think it a little hypocritical to doubt my identity when everyone else on here is anonymous and expect viewers to draw their own conclusions.I didn't give this site a completely glowing recommendation in any case: their records are by and large basic, however they do cover more conflicts and wars than anyone else and military genealogy is all they do.

I'm a free member on them all, genes reunited is the worst IMHO, ancestry has some great records but you have to be very clever and lucky to find them.You get what you pay for: if you want basic and regimental stuff try forces, if you want to spend silly money try ancestry

Glad I read this. I already suspected when I tried to just register - supposed to be free! and then got directed for payment!All very well if you have been in the forces, but not I think set up for genealogy....

If you sign up to this site then be very careful. I didn't find the site of any use, but thought that as I had only signed up for a one month subscription then the cost was minimal. No such luck. When you sign up they don't tell you on the front page that you will automatically be charged for a month on month subscription. You have to read through all the terms and conditions and then go in to the profile they have set up for you and change the automatic renewal from YES to NO. Otherwise they will automatically charge you month on month. BE WARNED. I'm happy to put my name to this review because what I have said is factual

I agree with Roy, although to be balanced, all subscriptions of anything aor any other agreements shoudl be advised as be careful.To be fair to the site they do make it perfectly clear you are signing to an ongoing sub, unlike ancestry for example who hide their auto renew and won't allow the user to switch it off very easily.

Not sure about reading ALL the terms as the instructions are clearly written in plain english and make it pretty foolproof in my opinion.Ho hum.

I have used www.forces-war-records.co.uk and found it useless they say its a free search but show you nothing and you have to pay to make sure the name you are looking at is the one you are after. you may then find the name you are looking for is not even on the site once you have paid

I have found them difficult to deal with and when you have a comment about content, all you get is its in our terms and you signed up for it.

Ironic as I used Find my past and Ancestry and neither had the anything for my G Grandfather but Forces war records did!

Perhaps it was due to my very unsual surname but I found the free search told me exactly what I needed to know before payment, I saw that they auto renew payments and could find how to switch these off very easily (far easier than 'ancestry' since we're now comparing them), I asked a question in their forums and had a prompt polite and informative reply, perhaps it depends on how you approach for help as to how helpful it will be to you?

I signed up and made payment, I actually read their tutorials too before hand. SO I knew that My Grandads records would be held by them.

I researched a great Uncle, and found a record on their which matched his details but I didn't know his army number, so I asked the Support Team and posted in the Forums, I got some amazing replies from the Veterans and staff on the forums and the support team were really good with their replies.

You live and learn and thanks to the forces-war-records team I have more knowledge now than I did before and yes it was my Great Uncles record.

The support team even gave me a detailed description of the battle my G uncle died in.

As for the second months membership i was billed, my fault, as it is deos tell you this on the payments page, went and read it after the money went out of my account. Call me idiot lolz.

All you chaps that keep declaring that Forces Reunited do NOT have any Service Records are absolutely CORRECT. They don't as Forces Reunited is NOT a genealogy website!

So well done on your observational Skills. Perhaps thats why your still being billed by the genealogy website you have joined. I bet you all got billed by ancestry too after your 2 Week free trial, which is stated in their Terms and Conditions, perhaps you people should READ before you by after all if you have a nut allergy you read the label to make sure the food contains no nuts. If you do not want to be billed you should read the Terms and Conditions to see what your paying for and when you will pay! Its what they are there for.

Perhaps if you guys looked and read what is displayed on the Forces Reunited website you will see they have a link to a genealogy website, this does not make them a Genealogy website.

As for spam, if you cannot change your own settings then how about contacting them, and to do this you simply click on a button labelled Contact us! Or change your own settings on your profile page, oh and every website has a profile or settings page, if they need to have details from you so they can help you find lost friends...... its pointless if they don't.

From an Armed Forces Veteran and proud member of Forces Reunited, who have done exactly what they say on the label, I have reunited with 8 of my old buddies from Germany,Oman & Iraq all through Forces Reunited.

I've just found this site and think most of the comments are a little unfair.

As a long term researcher I can tell you that no site has every record for a number of resasons, and out of the 30 or so million people that have served in the British Armed Forces there will only be about 10 million maximum that will be available at all.

This site has been an invaluable tool for me as it brings together a lot if information that you would a) struggle to find elsewhere b) spend a lot of time putting together yourself.

I guess it is a bit like 192.com in that, yes, you can possibly get the information from other sources, but it would take you more time than its worth to do it and so you pay the fee for convenience.

The note about Ancestry hiding their unsusbcribe payments option more than this site is also true, this has been the easiest site I found to unsusbscribe from, but none of them are 'easy'!

I cant find any contact details on this site (apart from the snail mail address in this forum) I have found this site to be of no use and wish to cancel my subscription, However there is absolutely no information on how to do so and where to go to do it. I would expect a decent site to make their unsubscribe option visible and contact details on the front page (or at least headed and a click away). If this is such a 'decent' site why do they hide this information? Nuff said....:-(

I agree with the comments made by Roy Staunton on April 3 - beware - you may think you're signing up for a month's subscription but these guys will continue to take money from you every month. It's a fairly modest amount that could lie 'hidden' in a credit card bill for a few months - I've just noticed the payment and instructed my bank to cancel it. They said they will also investigate to see if further action is required by the relevant authorities - even if this isn't quite a 'scam', there are enough negative comments on this site to raise concerns over clarity. M Walker

These Forces War Records people are a disgrace. I have wasted £25 on a three-month subscription and complained twice. You get no response apart from the automated reply from forcesreunited.co.uk.I have found only one scrap of information about my first father-in-law which I knew anyway and is available free from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.It is impossible to trace FWR's whereabouts or who's in charge. I have attempted four other searches with names, regiments and other known details. What FWR do not tell you is that their records are obviously hopelessly incomplete.My father was in the Walcheren landings; according to Forces War Records he might as well have been down the boozer.Don't waste your money; this is a massive scam but the biggest insult is their arrogant dismissal of any complaint. Refund? Forget it.

Did you not read anything on the site? They have all the information in their 'terms' same as any other site for that matter).Why pay for 3 months when they do shorter subs terms?Your fathers records are probably only held by the MoD by the way: if forces records promised you specifically they had HIS details then you probably have a legitimate gripe otherwise it's no wonder you won't get a refund.FWIW I tried the same argument with find my past and didn't even get a reply, despite writing also no less than 4 times!

Be very, very careful when signing up for a 'subscription'. This site will use what is called an auto-renew UNLESS you go through into a profile and switch the blasted thing off. You need to know what and where to look for this as it is not immediately obvious to those of us that are not overly familiar with how such websites work.Pretty shoddy all round IMVHO.

Further, I found the little bit of info to be extremely basic. Certainly not worth spending money on at all.

Customer services do not offer service. In fact this website having taken my money using the sharp practice actually had the gall to contact me suggesting I upgrade.

well there is some mature comments on here.!!!I was a member of this website and found it very useful. It was a small price to pay to have access to so many records. Yes they have Auto re-newel but if you CHECK your profile and read the T&C then you wont have these issues.As for contacting them, well they dont have an telephone, though its easy to email them and they got back in great time.

Welcome to Free Genealogy Tools

While searching for your family history, you've no doubt already hit the main sites and services online. But there are a ton of free resources that are incredibly valuable and not very well-known. That's what Free Genealogy Tools is all about. Each new post will explore a new site you can use to research your family's origins in great depth.

But first, I have to mention a subscription service that is well worth the cost...

NewspaperArchive.com is a fantastic resource... I've been a subscriber for years. Just about everyone's family gets into the newspapers at one time or another, with events large or small. This is the place to dig it all up.